


Better

by Ecris



Series: Alone Together [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecris/pseuds/Ecris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime after finding Drift drifting (har har) through space, and the insanity that ensues, a few kinks in Drift and Ratchet's relationship need to be ironed out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

The silence was awkward. Drift kept trying out convince himself it was natural. They’d been apart for too long, he hoped he hadn’t forgotten how to talk to a friend. Much less Ratchet, someone he had a tendency to irritate whenever he opened his mouth. As he looked over at the mech, he wanted to get Ratchet to relax. But he was having a hard time doing that himself. A lot of tension had built around him since his exile, and talking about anything but the Overlord incident would be hard. It was on both their minds, he was sure. It was incessantly pulling his attention away from any casual comment he might make, like 'how's First Aid doing?'

 

Well. Well, there was a complete, uninterrupted thought. He could work with that. "How's First Aid doing?"

 

Ratchet's head tried to snap up and look at Drift, but the movement was slowed by his age. The scowling expression on his face worsened as a cable in his neck snagged and made a grinding, cricking noise. Any sort of reply was stalled by Ratchet's hand reaching up to massage it. "What? First Aid?" His tone was pained, but not from the stiff neck.

 

"You know," Drift shrugged and looked up around in the air to find his words again, "his CMO training. Is he still a nurse?"

 

Ratchet looked like he was about to grunt a reply, but he rolled his eyes lazily and gave a bit of a smile. "Been kinda distracted. You know how it is. Now that you remind me, it might be time for his promotion."

 

"That's good news, right?"

 

"Yeah."

 

The look on Ratchets face turned thoughtful, and he unknowingly grimaced. Drift saw the frown coming, and felt a little guilt in being happy in the moment for its familiarity. Their old routine came back to him, and he had a reply on his tongue before his processor had time to think of the words.

 

"Finally gonna retire then?"

 

A harsh ‘chuff’ of a laugh escaped Ratchet. His grimace firmed into a sour half-smile. "Yeah right. As if I could. Can’t leave him all to himself, can I? What would First Aid do without an assistant, now that Amublon's dead?"

 

Drift could feel his frame tense as his medic scowled. Ratchet's demeanor had definitely changed, if that was how he spoke of Ambulon.  Apparently, things had gone from bad to worse after Drift had left, and worry swirled in his spark. Glancing under the edge of his tucked helm, he could see Ratchet's typical melancholy frown. He probably thought he was handling it ‘fine enough’, as he always said he was, but Drift's spark went out to him. Maybe it wasn't noticeable to Ratchet, but he could tell the difference.

 

Drift tried a different angle. "Gotta keep an eye on First Aid too. He'll always be grateful for your experience."

 

"Yeah," Ratchet laughed, and even that matched his sarcastic tone. “He’s bound to do something wrong sooner or later.”

 

For the second time, Drift winced at Ratchet’s bluntness. He almost asked what was wrong, but he bit his glossa. He’d rather not bring up whatever was depressing Ratchet right after meeting up again. It’d be better to talk about... anything else really, but he couldn’t think of any way to distract Ratchet. So he stared at the grim line of Ratchet’s frown and tried to think of something useful to say.

“We don’t have to go back right away,” Ratchet gruffed. His optics darted to Drift, and then down to his hands. Drifts’  optics tracked the movement, before his eyes rolled back to Ratchet’s mouth, which was still grimacing. He hadn’t expected Ratchet to say anything, especially not something like that. Something too close to his own thoughts.

“What do you mean?” Or better yet, “Why?”

“Do _you_ wanna go back- right now?” Ratchet glowered at Drift suddenly, and the swordsmech recoiled from the look’s strength. He was quick to recover, and he sent Ratchet his own hard stare.

“Do you?” Drift’s challenge followed the hard glint he could feel in his optics. He wouldn’t let Ratchet deflect from whatever he had let slip out. Not only was he going to find the answer, but he was going to find the source of whatever this was eating at his medic. Still, there was a second of fear as Ratchet failed to react, a second when Drift’s resolve faded, and then Ratchet vented slowly.

“No,” optics back to his hands. “I could use a vacation.”

“But you don’t take vacations.”

“Maybe it’s time I start.”

“Mhm,” Drift smirked a little, and kicked Ratchet in the knee. “That’s not why you wanna stay away.” Silently he prayed the small gesture would loosen the mech up, and not annoy him any further.

Ratchet’s leg pushed the pede away, and Drift watched as his mouth reaffirmed itself into a slightly less angry frown that was more exasperated. Relief flooded through him, a little bit of confidence regained.

“I’m tired of picking up after all the messes on that damn ship. Bots like Rodimus don’t think about the consequences. I’m left to fix his consequences. Don’t think I could stay to fix one more mech before I snapped that dumbaft in half.”

Oh. The casual mention of Rodimus felt like rubbing a sore weld the wrong way, but Drift tried to ignore it and focus on Ratchet’s words. The sudden openness was only a little startling after Ratchet’s earlier, blunt remarks.  It reminded him a little too much of the guilt he felt when he usually thought about Ratchet, about his past, about Deadlock. About the mechs Drift had landed in Ratchet’s medbay.

“I’m sorry,” Drift said quietly, and he hoped Ratchet would look up from his hand long enough to see that he meant it. Ratchet’s optics glanced at him, and their movement down to his hands again was followed by a vent and a creak of rolling shoulders.

“Don’t- it’s… it’s not like that,” Ratchet gave Drift a purposeful look; he knew where Drift’s mind had led him. “War’s over. I shouldn’t have to see mechs the way I do, anymore. For all the help I’m supposed to do, I wish I had some power to keep from having to help; to keep mechs from danger. There’s no reason I should have to see mechs dying from bullet wounds.”

There was a bit a flaw, for thoughts like that to come out of a medic. Drift wasn’t about to tell Ratchet that, on risk of getting Ratchet in an even worse mood. “Because the war’s over?”

Ratchet shrugged, still looking away from Drift. “Supposed to be. Probably won’t stay that way, for all my luck.”

“Or anyone else’s,” Drift sneered, before he could think better of himself. Internally, he cringed for lapse of positivity.  He still wanted to keep Ratchet from his distress.

“Nah, I think we’ll have ourselves in another ditch before too long. I’ll need to prepare for it, that’s why I’ll need a vacation. Some time before I have to dive right back in. Not sure how much more of this slag I can take, as old as I am. Can’t wait until I can retire.”

“Please,” Drift leaned back, “like you’d do anything else.” He smiled as Ratchet glared at him, but the medic’s optics were crinkled at the corners and his mouth was failing at a frown.

“I might try space golf. Get slagged in my old years, spend the days drinking and the nights wishing I was weak to engex like I was in my younger years.”

“Wishing?” Drift laughed, and cocked his head at Ratchet. “You still get overcharged after only a few bottles.”

“Mm, yeah, but not by then. By then I’ll have drunk enough each day, I’d never get overcharged again.”

“You could always deactivate your FIM chip.”

Ratchet grumbled loudly, letting his helm fall back and offlining his optics. “Know what, I’ll probably just settle down somewhere out where _you_ can’t find me, ya aft.”

The smile on Drift’s lips widened, and his spark warmed. “I’ll find you.”

The quiet that followed would have been uncomfortable, if Ratchet hadn’t relaxed, however subtly, at his words. He seemed to be considering something, as he slowly onlined his optics and, even slower, looked down at Drift.

“Would you?”

Something in Ratchet’s stare, with the small hint of a smirk, made Drift scared and impossibly brave at the same time. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he vented and gathered his processor in order.

“I think… it’d be hard to be apart from you again. After… after all of this.”

“This?”

Drift could feel the hesitation, crawling all along the inside and outside of his plating, fear and all of his thoughts trailing it. All he could do was stare blankly at Ratchet, not knowing his mouth hung open. What could he say to that? There actually wasn’t anything that had happened. Just some distance, some separation. So why did everything feel different?

“I… don’t know. It feels like something’s happened,” Drift frowned, and he looked down at his pedes.

“You were exiled, if that’s what you mean. Exiled, flying through space, fighting Decepticons, reuniting with old friends,” Ratchet smirked. “And then I found your sorry aft.”

Drift’s glare was broken by those last words, and he tilted his head back. “Definitely not the highlight of the journey.”

Ratchet chuffed again, and his hand faltered a little before he held it out. Drift didn’t see it until he followed Ratchet’s gaze down, and then his spark crackled painfully in its chamber. This would end badly. The hand reaching out to him seemed to flash him back through time in an instant. The fingers of the medic looked more dangerous than the wrong end of a gun, and he tightened his armor close to his frame.

Up until this point, he’d been comfortable. On the edge of flirting, hinting at the larger something hanging between them, poking and prodding at the bubble. The way it always was. And here, this hand reached between them, was pushing too far. The bubble could pop, if Drift’s fingers curled around the hand. If he reached out, too. But Drift couldn’t move.

Ratchet’s hand wasn’t moving though. He could feel his medic’s eyes shift, and knew they settled on Drift’s helm. He couldn’t meet the gaze, but he blinked as he tried. He tried to move his hand, his optics, anything.

At last, his arm responded through the whirling emotions inside him, and Drift grabbed Ratchet’s hand and pulled it closer. All of Ratchet came with it, and the medic used the momentum sling his arm around Drift and pull him closer as well. Both of them froze, afterwards, trying to adjust to the closeness.

“Is this alright?”Ratchet asked, and it seemed louder than Drift could handle when his spark rolled in response.

Drift rubbed his thumb over the hand holding his, and gathered the courage to look up at his medic. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I’ll get better.”

Finally, Ratchet smiled, and Drift felt the smile extend to the EM field that brushed against his, and their happiness merged together in the air between them.

“We’ll get better.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it, had to get all this fluff and feels for these two out of my system. Haven't written anything in a couple of years, so sorry about weird flow/etc. ^^"
> 
> Thanks to Bunsuu for editing it for me <3


End file.
